I am outta here

I'm just about out the door for my eco-friendly, low-cost, no-kid weekend to visit a friend. I won't be back posting until next week, so in the meantime, check out my most recent essay on Grist.

Off to the train. You know they serve beer, right!

Friday recipes; or Fricipes

Who doesn't love a good smoothie? That's right. Nobody.

So I was pretty happy my husband passed along his mom's quick smoothie recipe for a refreshing after-dinner treat. You can make it with ice cream, but I find it works just as well with plain yogurt (I never buy the pre-sweetened stuff because it's chock full of high fructose corn syrup and it's just as good if you take the plain stuff add a generous helping of maple syrup and your choice of fruit).

This smoothie literally takes about three minutes and could use almost any fruit. I read another great recipe to freeze these in Popsicle containers for smoothie frozen pops. Yum...

Strawberry-banana smoothie

• I cut up one banana, a half dozen good sized strawberries and throw those in the blender. I add about a cup and a half of yogurt and two TBS of maple syrup, which I swear does not make your yogurt take like maple syrup, just yummy sweet.
• Blend.
• Add about a handful of ice cubes.
• Blend until the cubes are crushed.

The big green escape

I'm going away this weekend because A) I have a really incredible husband who understands a break is needed whenever I start contemplating selling the kids on eBay and B) I have a really incredible husband.

After I bought Amtrak tickets, I started thinking maybe I should have rented a car. It's about $80 cheaper than the train, and a lot faster.

That's before my incredible husband (he really is, and yes, I'll stop mentioning it) pointed out that with the distance I'm driving, it would actually be $20 more expensive if I drove straight there and back, was lucky enough to get a car that got 30mpg and gas prices don't go much higher than $4 a gallon.

Not to mention the missing relaxation factor I get from riding the train.

When traveling alone, a train is much more eco-friendly than either the car or plane (especially planes with one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gases), so it just makes sense to grab an iPod and a couple of library books to help decompress after a steady stream of "mommy, mommy, mommy" during the last six months.

Grist recently ran a list of ways to green your trip and it's definitely worth checking out. Another tip: I always drink a ton of water when I travel, whether it's by plane, train or automobile. Bringing a reusable water bottle helps cut down on plastic waste.

Train photo by sheilaellen

What a line

I just want to sing the praises of the clothesline of a moment.

It's one of the easiest ways to eco-fy your house. And, unlike many very small (and cheap! hooray) changes, it packs a pretty big punch. I like to put in a load of laundry every night (I'm lucky to have a timer, but sometimes I wait until I wake up to start) and line dry late morning until early afternoon.

I do one load of laundry everyday, unless it rains. I can take it down at noon, or if I'm busy, later. It doesn't matter because line-dried clothes don't wrinkle like they do in the dryer. In fact, I have some clothes that have to be ironed no matter how quickly I retrieve them from the dryer, unless I hang them on the line.

Alexander Lee, Director of Project Laundry List, was recently quoted here:

One dryer, he knows today, eats up to $100 or more in power each year while emitting up to a ton of carbon dioxide. Collectively, America's more than 80 million dryers annually burn 6 to 10 percent of all residential electricity — second only to refrigerators and the equivalent of 30 million tons of coal or the output of the nation's 15 least productive nuclear reactors.

Stop all that just by hanging your laundry. Lee has a new blog for his organization that gives tips, musings and news all about the clothesline. I swear by it!

Beautiful big breakfast

When you run two miles in the morning, and then bike four miles to a restaurant carting 70 pounds of kid behind you, there's absolutely no guilt as you're practically licking your plate clean of its three-egg omelet. This I know to be true.

What I do find a little guilt-probable is the food. We were looking at the table condiments and found each packed with high fructose corn syrup, which is essentially banned at our house. Sure, I understand this sweetener, which is not that much chemically different than plain table sugar but a crap-load cheaper, is used to sweeten jams and jelly.

But when honey contains sugar, high fructose corn syrup, plain old corn syrup and, oh yes, honey, in its top five ingredients, you know there's a problem. So maybe we don't use the tiny packets on our table, but what about the pancakes? What about the juice? What about the sausage?

What's in that stuff? And how many empty calories did I replace from my vigorous morning workouts?

It's not that I'm against sweet stuff. I happen to like sweet stuff very much. I'm just against mass-produced foods adding this stuff, and calories that could be contributing to our obesity epidemic (although this issue is up for debate), to items that don't need sweetening. It's not that this corn-product is worse than sugar, but it's contributing calories to almost every processed food.

Honey, for instance, doesn't need sweetening. It's sugar. Why would you sweeten sugar? That's why I find it's just easier to avoid high fructose corn syrup altogether.

Master list

When scoping out big-ticket items at a garage sale, it helps to have some sort of a running list of things you need. On our list, we had dressers, a kids bike and a salad spinner.

So yesterday when we happened upon dressers for our two girls, we hadn't actively looked for probably about a year. But there it was. A three-piece set popped up out of nowhere for $80 (after my husband talked the seller down $20) and it only took us three car trips to haul that bad boy home.

The result, we have pretty decent dressers for both girls. It's not the steal we got last year when we bought our oldest daughter's big-girl bed, or the deal in the classifieds for our tiled dining room table, but it's still a great deal and it's totally recycled.

Friday recipes; or Fricipes

As promised, another DIY for homemade crayons, stolen straight from my Green Living Family Tips for Nick Jr. Magazine. I wrote it, so I guess it's probably OK for me to steal it.

This is a great option for birthday favors, along with homemade Play-Doh or a homemade CD burned with your favorite kid tunes.

Recycle your crayon bits

1. Collect broken and used crayons for a rainy day project.

2. Remove the paper from crayons and fill muffin tin halfway. Use just one color, or mix a bunch for a tie-dye looking crayon. Bake at 200˚F for 12 minutes, or until wax melts. Watch closely. Let cool.

Dump the Pump

It's the third annual Dump the Pump day, promoting public transit.

Our family isn't driving today. Steve took the bus to work, I biked to the grocery store/playground and will later be biking to the pool. Our public transit system is offering free rides today, so I'm a little bummed I'm not taking the bus somewhere.

Since we regular make everyday Dump the Pump day, I don't feel too bad. Driving less saves us much, much money, we are healthier and we're contributing to a more sustainable world.

We don't need a day to feel good about that. Although free buttons help. Visit this Public Transportation site for a free button showing your support for the bus/train.

Reusable awesomeness

I just want to say, those Parmesan cheese containers in the cooler section (like Kraft or off-brand cheese that's totally not the good stuff but that is much cheaper than the good stuff and you know you kind of love it) make great snack containers.

They have cool lids. A wide section for crackers. A shaker section for raisins. The lids screw on which means less spillage. They're a great size.

I haven't done this yet, but I'm thinking of letting the girls paint one. Giving them ownership of this handy-yet-disposable item might (fingers crossed) make it less likely they'll leave it behind.

Organically sealed

Do you know what I find incredibly annoying? When things labeled "organic" have a decidedly not-earth-friendly aspect.
Like this tea I picked up the other day. Just for the record, I generally don't buy organic as a matter of course. I'll pay higher prices for locally grown, preferably using organic methods, and I'll buy organic produce if it looks better, aka fresher. But corporate organic farming just doesn't ring my bell, if you know what I mean. (note * I highly recommend taking a look at that last link. It has a flow chart of which companies own which organic brands.)

I bought this tea because it was on sale. When I got home and saw each tea was individually packaged — in plastic — I groaned dramatically. Most of the high end tea I buy isn't individually packaged, and some of it doesn't even have that little string and paper. The really good stuff is loose tea, and that doesn't have any packing at all.

Practice camp

As I get older, I love the outdoors more and more. Cold. Hot. In between. If I could figure out a way to live outside, I just might give it a try.

So it's weird that my husband and I aren't the camping type. Sure, we'd like to be, but we didn't make the effort pre-kids and as any parent knows, picking up something like that post-kids can be impossible. For example, if you've got a kid who will barely sleep in a bed, how the heck are you supposed to get that kid to sleep in a tent!
This is the year we're going to really make an effort to do at least one camping trip. Now that our baby is 2, we're finally able to do things that seemed crazy just last year, like taking a train trip to Chicago that prepared us for the apocalypse.

Last night, we did a trial run in the backyard. By we, I mean my husband. And by trial run, I the real thing. Trial runs are great, because in case of failure, there's an easy escape hatch like a bedroom 30 feet away. And when you trial run, you realize the things you'll need for the real thing.

For instance:

• Couch cushions are no substitute for a second air mattress. Waking up on a couple of askew cushions with two small children on top of you is not, apparently, a recipe for a good night's sleep.
• If you're going to be getting a less than adequate night's sleep because of early risers and late downers (I realize that doesn't make too much sense, but bear with me), do not drink too much beer/wine and realize a hangover on just a few hours rest is something you do in your 20s.
• While we had a television, house lights, loud stereo and fridge in our house, nature will probably have less of that stuff. Bring light.

See how useful our trial run turned out to be? Come on nature. We're ready!

Friday recipes; or Fricipes

Last week, the girls took home a tiny tub of Play-Doh from their summer reading program. It was a sticky mess and I promptly threw it away and promised my elephant-never-forgets-minded 4-year-old I'd make some myself one day it rained.

So she kept waiting and waiting and waiting for a rainy day. Today, still no rain despite predictions of 80 percent, and I gave in.

I don't know why I had waited so long. Homemade Play-Doh is super easy and fast. It doesn't have any mystery ingredients and you can decide on the fly what colors you want. Break out the cookie cutters and you've got yourself an afternoon.

Simple Mom just posted a super recipe for the stuff on her site a few days ago. Rather than steal it, I'll just go ahead and link directly to her site. I just made two batches and found it simple to follow with a great result. Next week, I'll post my other favorite rainy day DIY — homemade crayons.

Growing success

I think I've mentioned this before, or maybe a few times, but my thumb is not naturally green. So I super excited about my minor success this spring.

I grew lettuce (from plant) and radishes (from seed) in my new little garden. It turns out all the books are right; anybody can grow radishes. My 4-year-old, having helped sow the seeds, even ate some of the radishes she helped grow. And the lettuce was as tender and sweet as any at a farmer's market.

But I was a little disappointed it wasn't the BEST salad I've ever eaten. The stuff from my CSA farmer is just as good. I guess that means it's just as fresh, which is a good problem to have.

Now that the lettuce is gone and the radishes are thinning, I've planted peppers and tomatoes. I'm conducting a little tomato experiment by buying an heirloom variety from a farmer and some standard breeds from the hardware store to see which produces better. The heirloom plant, at $3, better do well to compete with the six-pack of Better Boys for the same price.

Bye-bye Hummer

"Who would want a Hummer? Can you imagine if you had a Hummer right now? What a nightmare that would be."

My husband just laughs at my rant, and it's double entendre-y nature. But seriously. Who has that kind of cash just waiting to be thrown away on gas?

Nobody, it turns out. GM is backing off it's line of SUVs, and thinking of selling its beloved Hummer, to focus on smaller cars. Come on Ford. Bring back that feisty Festiva at nearly 30 mpg.

Come to think of it, maybe people are going a bit further. A few weeks ago on a bike ride to the park with my girls, I saw two other parents with kid trailers — on the SAME block. I see them everywhere now (even my neighborhood Target store for less than $100 on sale). Today at the playground, the only things there were three parents, three kids and two bikes with Burleys.

It's pretty exciting to watch the market crush the things are damaging the planet while promote the things that make us all healthier.